Monday, June 14, 2010

What An Asshole

Congressman Bob Etheridge. Just smacks some college kid asking a question.Update: It appears that this was from a conservative operation trying to make the congressman look bad and it did. I should have noticed that the kids faces are obscured. It is also not known whether they asked if he blew goats with Micky Kaus first. Or asked if he had sex with dogs and Rick Santorum, who always prays after dog sex. His priests say it is OK as long as they are male puppies.

Still the congressman should have handled the situation better.

Update: Glenn is of course right. He should be arrested. The Congressman. He also has a link to a unedited second camera. He comes across as an asshole. As for the earlier speculation it is out there and it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Bourdain On Pollan

A good Q&A with Anthony Bourdain.

Well, it might not be the best place to go looking for nuance. But what about people who do have more nuanced views on food? What do you think about all these inquiries into the ethics of eating—Michael Pollan's work, for instance, or Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals? You've been rather vicious toward vegetarians in the past.

Pollan is hunting big game, in the sense that he's wrestling with big issues. I think he's discussing them in a way that allows for honest disagreement. He's not an absolutist. I think he's a very valuable addition to the discussion. Safran Foer, while I liked the book, I disagree completely with it. I don't understand how we can acknowledge the importance of the human dimension of turkey dinner yet forgo it anyway. I guess it's just a question of priorities.

But the Bay Area Ridge Trail, begun as a far-off dream by a few parks lovers more than 20 years ago, is slowly taking shape.

The project aims to connect and preserve a vast corridor of wildness in one of America's most populous regions, from the Wine Country to Silicon Valley, from the East Bay hills to the ridgelines of the Santa Cruz Mountains — a 21st-century Pacific Crest Trail for urban residents who spend so much of their lives in traffic and in front of computers

A good thing about Bear Mountain is that millions of people can get to it. A bad thing is that millions of people can get to it. So over the years, the trails have been rebuilt and relocated many times. By the 1990s, it was clear that the Bear Mountain section of the trail, used by a half-million people a year, needed to be rebuilt again. The solution, drawn up primarily by Mr. Walsh and another trail designer, Peter Jensen, was an impossibly ambitious series of steps and walkways supported by native stone.

It would last, one hoped, forever. It would keep neophytes on the trail instead of bounding out into the woods. It would work for urban hikers showing up in tennis shoes and flip-flops, as well as for serious long-haul hikers. And it would be a challenge to build.